"Pauper Kings:Orzhov Aura 9 Grim Snipes"

"Pauper Kings:Orzhov Aura 9 Grim Snipes"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

The third set of a big expansion is often the least explored.With the short amount of time in between Journey into Nyx and the Khans of Tarkir releases most players tend to focus on the newer set. The result is that a lot of gems in the previous set are ignored and may go on ignored for a long time until someone makes a deck for them. One of those cards is the Grim Guardian and its activated Constellation ability. This deck that I call Orzhov Aura 9 Grim Snipes allows you to take a pot shot at your opponents every time another enchantment or Grim Guardian comes into play.

4 x Scoured Barrens

8 x Swamps

8 x Plains

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22 x lands

4 x Baleful Eidolon

4 x Heliods Pilgrim 

4 x Nyxborn Shieldmate 

4 x Nyxborn Eidolon 

4 x Grim Guardian

4 x Hopeful Eidolon

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24 creatures

4 x Eternal Thirst

2 x Grisly transformation

4 x Debilitating Injury

4 x Scourge Mark

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14 spells

Sideboard:

4 x Pharikas Cure

4 x Nyx Infusion

2 x Sign in Blood

4 x Akroan Skyguard

Orzhov Aura 9 Grim Snipes like I said revolves around the Constellation ability of the Grim Guardian. The deck contains 9 different enchantments that all serve a different purpose from card draw to creature removal but mostly to trigger the sniping ability of our main card. 90% of the deck is there to make triggering this ability much faster.

The deck has Aura creatures that curve up to 3 mana but essentially has easy casting costs. These creatures could be cast in the early turns of the game and later be used to boost the power and toughness of their fellow creatures by using the Bestow cost of the card. One card in particular , the Baleful Eidolon is a good deterrent because of its Deathtouch.While none of these creatures are imposing in stature they all become very big when joined together.

Grisly transformation and Scourge Mark are good offensive cards because they provide Intimidate and a +1/0 power boost. They also allow you to draw a card when they enter the battlefield.These cards serve as the card drawers of the deck , some might ask why not choose Read the Bones or Sign in Blood with the superior scrying and card draw.The last 2 cards are great but none of them could trigger the Grim Guardian and none of them could be fetched by Heliods chosen , whom I have 4 copies of in the deck.

Eternal Thirst is one of those auras that I have begun to play with recently. You could expect to take a lot of early damage in this deck against speedier decks but this particular aura lets your creatures stabilize your life total by the Lifelink that it grants them. This also works well with Debilitating Injury. This enchanted creature gets a +1/+1 counter whenever an opponents creature dies. You could outright kill a creature with spot removal or they could try defending against your attack and any death on the other side of the battlefield allows you to pile on the +1/+1 counters on the enchanted creature even more.

The main draw of the Orzhov Aura 9 Grim Snipes is to drain an opponents life points away without even attacking. Well you could attack when the coast is clear I guess because you would tend to have big creatures in the mid to late game anyway.Basically this deck is death by enchantment.1 life lose is negligible but these little things could really get out of hand once there are multiple copies of the Grim Guardian already in play.Imagine killing a morph creature with a Debilitating injury and also sniping an opponent for a life point.

All I can say is.Time to snipe someone.